‘Selfie’-less act helps friend

Published:11:00Friday 02 May 2014

A pair of Arbroath friends have raised more than £500 for research into Leukaemia using nothing but social media and the infamous ‘selfie’.

Peter Fletcher (22) was inspired to raise the money after seeing his friend Blair Fraser (21), who suffers from Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia, post a picture of himself with his medication during the recent ‘No Make-Up Selfie’ cancer campaign.

Blair was hoping to raise awareness of blood cancer and Peter took the idea and ran with it. He explained: “I saw Blair put up a selfie with his medication. I’m the type of guy who will take a lot of selfies and post them online and I thought, wait a minute, I’ve got all these selfies and I’m sure I could give a £1 for each one.”

Peter discovered he had more than 100 pictures and set up a Just Giving page to attract more donations, and together with some very generous pledges, including one person who matched the original total and contributions from friends and work colleagues, more than £500 was raised and presented to Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research.

Lynn Fraser, Blair’s mother, was full of praise for the boys. She said: “They’ve known each other for several years, probably about six or seven years but Blair doesn’t really broadcast the fact he is ill and I don’t think Peter had realised he was ill. It wasn’t until Blair put that selfie up of him with his medication, he was quite taken aback and shocked.

“I didn’t know Peter before all this, I know Blair would mention him from time to time. Peter had never done a thing for charity in his life before and it’s given him the bug.”

She added: “So many young people get a bad press and this just something he’s decided to do. I think the fact that they weren’t great friends at the start of all this makes it all the better.”